Power creep is looming upon us thanks to the Super OP character that was introduced at the end of version 16.3 and because of that the expectation of many player regarding new series changed a lot and they underestimating this machina series. I have seen a lot of players thinking that this patch is not worth it and they feel that Machina doesn't have any parting point without Pompeii, and I think that all that is blasphemy and just wish for more unnecessary power creep. Madhead even decided to bring back Delta and introduce new Machina biweekly cards so players can catch up with them. In my opinion I think this series is on par with Fairy Tail in terms of strength.

Long time fans in the other hand waited for too long for a Machina focused patch, that includes me, and we are happy to see how Einstein turned out to be a good alternative for those without Turing. Also I am really hyped about the new upcoming Void of the Realm scenario that will continue the story after defeating Shamash on the 10th seal.

Some frequent questions that I've got regarding this series:

?Q: Should I draw here if I don't have Pompeii?
?A: Yes, Pompeii is a standalone leader of his own and this new Machina are meant to be good alternative, besides Darwin brings a lot more HP.
?Q: What if I don't have Phi or Epsilon?
?A: Those 2 help a lot because they are useful for different combos, but they are not entirely needed for the new series to work. Sure Epsilon+Delta is still powerful and those 2 are amazing on Galileo and Darwin.
?Q: I don't have many Machina members to begin with...
?A: Delta and Descartes stages are available right now, and they are bringing new Machina event cards on ultimate, biweekly, guild event and joint operation, be sure to not miss those and your machina pool will increase. Also Boilerman is back... as purchase reward.
?Q: Is not better to save for collaborations instead?
?A: Yes, but we have been waiting for a long time for Machina to get any attention, you could simply draw seldomly to get cards for the Arena and the utility members and then go full when next collaboration comes.
?Q: Is this seal meta defining?
?A: YES, because right now until version 16.3 we had like 5 Machina leaders at most and the 3 machina Leaders from this series introduce solid mechanics that accelerate cooldown and fuel which allows you to play Machina faster than before and you get some decent bursting tools as well.
?Q: Is Einstein a good jackpot?
?A: Yes, he allows you to play Machina and Humans of any attribute but plays better with water cards. I recommend you to watch some of his gameplay videos so you can see how good he is.
?Q: So if I have Pompeii I am safe to skip this?
?A: No, I would recommend to get the common cards anyway. Also you can expand your tools with this cards, because let's face it, Mechanical Life and Mech Mythological Beasts are not enough.

Tier List

As you may know already the tier list is no longer part of this series of threads but rather it is available as a different resource in Google Sheets, it will be updated every now and then with more comments about how to use every leader and listing the changes in the placements. If you want to support this job and many other threads I create feel free to donate to me via my Ko-Fi page, Paypal or Bitcoin wallet.

Overall the only clash I see with this series is that Darwin and Galileo can't use the common cards of the seal, which will limit a bit what you can use on the Arena, sure veterans don't care because it's likely that they have some or all of the cards from Mechanical Life and Mech Cyborg Scholars and can overcome the problems. Other than that the common cards are pretty good with only one being questionable as usual.

Relativity of Cosmology - Einstein: I can say that his raw damage output is on par with Atlantis, the water explode can be convenient but also problematic because this will make you struggle when stacking runestones against specific shields so you must be careful and bring tools for that, water runestones having 50% of heart effect also allows him to play Wen Zhong safely on a similar fashion to Priestess Xi. He is quite flexible because you can use Humans and Machina of any attribute and because of that it is unlikely that you will be short on tools. Also the availability of Descartes on the first day of this patch already grants him a solid start when it comes to Machina members. For this time I don't feel like providing sample teams, you could simply slot human cards from previous collaborations and call it a day. As for Machina goes I know it is a bit more tricky because the number of options is more limited but you should browse the Wikia for a bit.

Laws of Nature - Newton: Fire mono was the only one missing forced skydrop, I've read that players are happy because this guy can be really helpful on Pompeii at times where you can't dissolve Fire Runestones on the first batch.

Mutated Biodiversity - Darwin: At first sight his base damage seems low, but as usual Machina leaders tend to depend more on fuel to reach full potential, team skill allows him to increase fuel really fast as well. His kit allows you to reach super high HP on par with Xuanwu I think? and he got built-in self attack which should help to burst and reset the board whenever is needed. By using Delta+Epsilon I managed to make Delta reach 90k attack with Darwin as leader and adjutant. So in general I can say Darwin is better than the 1 year old Li Tieguai and Faster than Turing when aiming for damage.

Brain Teaser - Edison: He is bringing me a lot of headache because his active skill component is mainly one of the options that Madhead planned for PR Tang Sanzang active skill but ended up going for the dissolve of frozen and weathered runestones. Right now there is debate on if we should use him because you either pick him or bring Erza to the team. In my opinion if you go for Edison is because you are adding utility members and you are better getting 1 single card that can convert for burst and that's it. He doesn't offer anything else at CD6 so it's pretty much intended to be this way.

Prologue of Supernova - Galileo: This card active skill is way too strong, and the leader skill of dual Galileo adds 3164 base attack to members. The effect of dissolving 4 on her column makes it so you can accelerate boosters or really effective cards like Descartes, Sniper Lionel and Li Tieguai. I think that it is too strong and you should try to chase for this card.

Elemental Radionuclide - Marie Curie: Another unlock card on the same series and good thing that it is an universal unlock for water which didn't have one since Sie Kensou who is no longer available. The poison effect is also convenient since water have pretty specific cards to bypass defense like Kukulkan and Jinnie which tend to be left behind due to race restriction.

Method of Elenchus - Socrates: So far I don't think it is bad because he can become a persistant boost effect if Plato and Aristotle are present, the thing is that since those cards are not introduced yet I don't know if the combo is going to be good enough. It is likely that the trio will be all machina on Fire, Earth, and Dark and that they are meant to be played as members for Darwin and Galileo.

Return of Halley - Nicole: This card is legit good if you are playing against enemies that alter the board or you need to carry some specific board, planning ahead she can be really good with Yocto "Swastika" active skill or Jellal. Her Legs are S tier.

『Mech Western Beasts』

More random cards for the Machina revolution, they are just feeling the gaps of what is needed so far for Machina specific teams and for free so you guys feel motivated to get them all for the new leaders. There is something that you might not notice at first sight and is the fact that their amelioration bonuses are "double sword" with 1.2x and 1.5x respectively which is way too strong, be sure to get their amelioration 4 before power release in order to save souls because the cost is changed. Some of them doesn't look useful at all right now, but we might get some other leaders that can get benefit from them in the future.

Kraken of Aeons - Cthulhu: Right now there are only 2 leaders I would recommend to use this card on, the first one is obviously Einstein, and the second one is Atlantis. The second recommendation might look curious enough but with the availability of double Boilerman for the constant conversion and CD -3 Atlantis can potentially become a crazy leader for water machina cards, just mix and match for convenience.

Hellfire Mortar - Cerberus: Pompeii approves this card, it might be pushed out too fast, but still a free alternative never hurts.

Venomous Lazer - Medusa: This one is way faster than her 6* beast counter part but doesn't change the attribute of the enemy in exchange for Machina based attack. This one is what I recommend the most to get from this series.

Mythical Thunderbolt - Griffin: I am not amused because the light machina cards doesn't have much to offer right now, we need a light machina leader. Sure, you can try with Taotie and Baihu but I don't have much feedback on them to tell how good it is.

Grim Reaper - Baphomet: this one is also on a weird spot, sure Taotie or Baihu could use it, but we need something more. Also not ideal for dual Galileo (dark machina team) because leader and ally attack is 0 * 2.5x.

About Supreme Reckoning System
I feel that Madhead intent with this upgrade is to bring card to the highest form possible and make it so they can last as long as black cards do in exchange of the heavy price, I can't complain at all about it because I really like all the changes that the Norse Gods received. Right now they have all the tools to challenge the current endgame content and are flexible enough to bench any card of their attribute with bulky stats which is something we didn't have, sure Babylon was close to this on 16.0 but only for leader and fellow Anu at most. The God race as a whole was being neglected for a long while and suffered of lacking leaders with high stats and flexible enough to slot more than 2 races. Should you invest on this? In my opinion sure, some of the Norse Gods right now outperform on stability many of the leaders in the "Best Choice" tier so read my priority and opinion on them next:

Sword of Annihilation - Freyr: He is on the top 3 of my recommendation list right now, mainly because even Atlantis users have been having problem to reach 21k HP and because of that they have been dying against 10th seal ambush, but now Freyr is finally the bulky water leader that we have been waiting for long time, hell yes in my opinion even better than Yusuke because you can play Gods, Dragons and Machina members as well. There are many approach to Freyr right now, mainly those luxurious that include Boilerman+Atlantis or others that go for full water gods with "Sapphire Phantom - Xi". I would recommend him the most out of the WFE Norse Gods because of all the tools that water got so far.

Destructive Incineration - Tyr: With a solid base on what Madhead have been doing with Fire Gods right now, Tyr is totally destructive as his name implies, I mean, the fire attribute got absurd amount of cards that carry damage over rounds and can deal high amount of direct damage to the enemies (be it Natsu or Megumin for example). The only reason I wouldn't go for Tyr is because Pompeii can heal with Fire Runestones and overall tools are better at the cost of being slower and being on need to ramp for fuel. Damage is not everything, Fire mono got it's utility scattered around on different rare cards so keep that in mind if you don't have a good pool of cards to deal against everything.

Finale of Aria - Freyja: Freyja got different combos going on for her, mainly those involving Shyplant (good for recovery, also Kurama) or Parvatti but she got a weird spot for Mesopotamia and Rakshasa owners, outside of that scenario it is totally fine to aim for her because Earth mono doesn't have any other flexible choice on the "Best Choice" tier right now. Also she got a "poorman Frigg" by using AR Yang Jian.

Fulgurous Blast - Thor: Historically Thor have never been a strong leader because he was unable to slot Lucifer because of the high team cost caused by the key member Odin, now that using Lucifer is possible feels funny because I think there are you could use Persephone or Jiang Ziya for the same purpose at cheaper cost and more flexibility. Also it is worth to mention that Luna is absurd strong in here with her AR team skills so that is the reason why I rank Thor as the highest priority on SR Norse right now.

Alteration of Sins - Loki: my previous statement probably let you wondering why Thor if Loki exists?, sure Loki can abuse Pollux and bring Hel to basically turn him on to a tier S card, but he is pinned under the shadow of the almighty chinese first emperor that rules over the darkness and demons and that is why I think Loki can be on the total spotlight right now, yet if you don't have access to the overpowered chinese emperor whose name I don't dare to speak anymore I would recommend going for Loki as a solid alternative.

Frigg: I'm quite against the way that Madhead decided to introduce her on a collectors deck which is really annoying but it is true for what the card is... a cash grab, for over the top multiplier and tools that simplify the gameplay, I don't really feel that she is necessary at all for the SR Norse to be solid enough, but having her makes a massive difference just as much as Hel does for Loki. If you can afford it go for her.

Arena

Patra the Light Alchemist: I can't be more disappointed about a card like I am from this one, she is pretty unintuitive because she should convert on the round of activation to make the effect persistant but nope, you are required to already have demon runestones on the board to dissolve in order to keep her effect in play, this being said this card is designed for the Luminous savant, initially I believed she could do wonders on Tang Sanzang and take away the lame slot that Kejouro is getting, but nope, it was all debunked when I personally maxed her and realized I couldn't keep the effect active. So in short don't bother training her unless you are planning to play the savant. I would really like Madhead to buff her and turn her on to a member for Tang Sanzang because nobody is going to play the savant anyway.

Biweekly Bosses

Cogito Ergo Sum - Descartes: You know that powercreep have gone too far when you end up getting a 15 second CD8 card with time tunnel as biweekly, like I said earlier this card is meant for Einstein but you are safe to use him in any other Machina team, he is the main workaround against many board obstacles and you can use it to solve Metasphere which is appearing more often on new stages. DON'T SKIP THIS BIWEEKLY.

Sceptical Scientist - Boyle: I'm speechless about this card, I really considered that Madhead was not going to release such a total garbage cards anymore. Don't even bother.

Philosophy of Empiricism - Bacon: This card seems to be just a experiment for something madhead is planning to extend eventually with other cards, other than that it is garbage, just a snipe. What a waste of artwork, seriously.

Ultimate Lords

Ether Fission - Aristotle: Alone this card is just one more among many with no substantial benefit, but if paired with his trio they can be a devastating force, yet I'm still pending to get any information about Plato to know what is Madhead up to. Then again, I feel they can be the standard F2P members for Darwin+Galileo and some meme alternative to "revive" XHD (assuming that Plato is fire attribute).

Republic Theory - Plato: There is a semi-hidden strength on this card that people don't realize at first and is the fact that if you pair him with Aristotle and Socrates you get a tool to unmask the board. In the end the combo ended up being an over the top FED damage trio as I expected, and seriously I don't think it is bad at all.

Orbits of Coelestium - Copernicus: Okay this is good because he provides a board that can be moved for perfect 10 combos, the problem is that right now we don't have any Light/Dark human leader like in the times of Yi Ye Shu and Ye Shiao Chai so I don't understand why Madhead keep bringing Ultimate cards like this, the previous being Blodgett not so long ago.

Event Bosses

Sweety Maid - Tiffany: Her effects are okay because she provides 2 effects at CD7 and the possibility of a 80% shield that is not from diamond seal is nice, but so far the only "Light Machina" leader would be Mech Baihu which is one of those unusual leaders I haven't got any feedback to know on how is doing and I'm pending to PR mine to actually test. I do mention the thing about Baihu because so far Machina cards only have been getting main attention on Water, Fire and Earth with little emphasis on Light and Dark cards.

Research of Life - Schrödinger: He is on a weird spot because you could play him with Delta, Mech Zhuque, or Schnauzer, all those got the ability to lower HP to 1 with different effects with Delta being the best for that. Folks over discord have been using dupes along with his combo to accelerate the team, but personally I don't think that is good or necessary. The real deal for me with this card is using him along with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to generate runestones along with Darwin and Galileo leader, but then again, that might be just me. Overall he is an excellent card and is shame to see him as Horror because we don't know when it is going to return.

The Last Judgment - Michelangelo: This card can be used only on 2 leaders, being either Erza or Mesopotamia, outside of that scenario I don't see any leader that could synergize or use this card at all. If his active was the opposite of making Earth runestones to have Heart effect he would be really amazing like Shakuro, but sadly this is not the case.

Wall of Donors:
@Tenmaru#8678, @Santa#1778, @Clueless#5064, @Lilacse#0020, @thanyou#8485, @furu#3839, @Dukevoid#9847, @ian#0749, @k_sum#2718, @HellBilly#8774, @Xsaren#9280, @NodiusC#2966, @KTR#8460, @Zenix#7374, @attanond (Ivan)#4797, @Evelyn#3563, and Loredas#6382
Thank you guys so much for helping me and encouraging me to continue posting more content for this game and the community!.

[GOS] Oriceles. UID: 64,287,068Common adjutants: Latest patch members I manage to grab lol.
I'm Guild of Saviors president, if you want to join be sure to join the Discord server for information.

The active skill does have 2 portions separated by semicolon which means that you are free to play the 2nd portion of the active skill if the condition is not met, but yeah I need to try that interaction later.

Right now I'm missing Einstein, Galileo, Curie, and Edison.

[GOS] Oriceles. UID: 64,287,068Common adjutants: Latest patch members I manage to grab lol.
I'm Guild of Saviors president, if you want to join be sure to join the Discord server for information.

At first I think Patra fits in YZ team, so I brought this setup to this biweekly battle. Sadly, his skill was deactivated at R6 (the girl with the laser line) even though I dissolved 2 demon runes. Maybe an error that MH will fix, but his skill will be definitely deactivated if we turn YZ on, because YZ will normalize all runes.

So if you got plenty of warpoints, you can max him. Otherwise, not worth.

(02-12-2019, 01:01 PM)kukingkong Wrote: At first I think Patra fits in YZ team, so I brought this setup to this biweekly battle. Sadly, his skill was deactivated at R6 (the girl with the laser line) even though I dissolved 2 demon runes. Maybe an error that MH will fix, but his skill will be definitely deactivated if we turn YZ on, because YZ will normalize all runes.

So if you got plenty of warpoints, you can max him. Otherwise, not worth.

PS: as far as I read his auto in ToS card, its a he.

Nah Patra is in deed a woman, read her lore. Now, the thing is that she is working as intended but the design is plain bad, in order for her active to stay in play you need to dissolve demon runestones on the round she is activated so if your team can't provide demon runestones before her effect starts, you will lose the effect.

[GOS] Oriceles. UID: 64,287,068Common adjutants: Latest patch members I manage to grab lol.
I'm Guild of Saviors president, if you want to join be sure to join the Discord server for information.

Spacelion has a good point that some crash fever cards are coming back to usefulness wih this patch. Its too bad we cant get mobius or turing with allmax since they ae collabs. Hopefully madhead will bring them back or at least some machina replacments. Madhead work on this.

Should we get two doublemax descartes weekly cards? Its pretty powerful and we have few if any machina this good.